Question

Create a 1-page document using Microsoft^® Word that explains the following to the intern:

How requirements for a software project are gathered

What user stories are, why they are needed, and how they are used

Answer 1

1. Requirement Gathering for software project:

Requirements in software project: Requirements in the software project are the expected behaviours and functionalities which are to be implemented in the software. These requirements are implemented to meet the customer and end user’s expectations and needs to use the software.

Example: Requirements in the calculator software are to perform the mathematical calculations on the provided input values.

Requirement Gathering: Requirement gathering is the first most phase of the software development which defines the success of the software. If the requirements gathered are complete, correct and as per the customer’s expectation, it makes a bridge for the development team to become successful in software development. Below are few sequential steps, which can be followed to gather the requirements:

1. Identify the project goals: The project’s goal helps in identifying the requirements to be implemented in the software .e.g. if the purpose of the project is for student’s registration, the project will roam around the student management system
2. Identify the end user: The project’s requirements gathering depend of the different types of users which are going to use the software. E.g. if it is to be used by students, the software will be developed as per the educational requirements to be available for the students.
3. Identify the existing similar software: The project management team should identify if there is any similar kind of product already running in the market. If so, the same can be used to analyse the end use and current functionalities. Use those functionalities to set a benchmark for the new project and to avoid the mistakes in the existing project.
4. Arrange requirement gathering meetings: Meetings should be arranged for gathering the requirements from the customers and everything should be written down in documents for the requirements.
5. Sharing the requirement understanding with customer: When the requirement gathering process is going on for the system, the project management team should share their understanding with the customer on regular basis to avoid any confliction and misunderstanding regarding any point in requirements
6. Surveys: The surveys can help providing the requirement details for the software. It is set of questionnaires to be asked from random end users and analysing the responses to get the interested requirements from the end users to make the software more successful.

2. User Stories, its need and how these are used:

User store: A user story in the modern software development life cycle model is a simplified description of a small requirement to be implemented in the software. Software project requirements are divided into several small user stories to make easy to handle and development approach.

It simply defines the User, the feature and the use of the feature in the software

Example: As a Student, I want to make payment in application to clear my due fees in the class.

The above user story has:

User: Student

Requirement: Make payment

Reason: to clear due fees

**Need of user story: The user stories helps in dividing the software in small features. In traditional models, it was needed by the customers to define all requirements in initial states of software development and then the development was started. Requirements are gathered and converted to the user stories. Thus the user stories are used to prioritise the requirements and implement the same as per the customer’s expectations.

It makes the user requirements easy to manage and changeable while the development. Tiny requirements are implanted and tested by users and based in the same, new requirements are added in the software.

User story approach converts the traditional ‘All-this’ in the software to be implemented approach to ‘it’s enough as of now’ approach. The customer tells small requirement to be implanted and on the basis of the implementation, the other requirements can be added later.

**How to use the user stories:

The user stories are followed in a sequence of steps to meet the requirement implementation in the software. Below are the practical steps which are used in user stories:

1. Identify and list all the requirements
2. Each requirement is converted to one or more user story(ies)
3. Assign a unique identifier for the user story ad add to TODO list
4. Start developing the user story
5. Get the implementation reviewed from concerned team.
6. Finish the user story and close the requirement development.